Steve Nash says Dwight Howard never wanted to be a Laker

Steve Nash says Dwight Howard never wanted to be a Laker

Dwight Howard left over $30 million on the table, as well as a place in the history of one of the most prestigious franchises in all of professional sports, when he left the Los Angeles Lakers to sign with the Houston Rockets. However, to hear Lakers point guard Steve Nash tell it, Howard was never comfortable being a Laker in the first place.

“Ultimately, I think Dwight wasn’t comfortable here and didn’t want to be here,” Nash told ESPN Radio on Tuesday. “And if he didn’t want to be here, there’s no point for anyone in him being here. So we wish him the best and move on.”

Nash took a typically diplomatic approach to addressing Howard’s departure — more so than, say, Shaquille O’Neal. Even when talking about the awkwardness of Howard’s relationship with Lakers fans and media, he refused to assess any blame.

“I’ve heard he said to the media that he never quite felt embraced in LA, he never quite felt maybe supported,” Nash said. “Really just never quite felt comfortable at home, and I don’t know that that’s anybody’s fault.”

Nash’s assessment that Howard never wanted to be a Laker is an interesting one. Before the 2011-12 season, and at the trade deadline that year, it was common knowledge that Howard wanted out of Orlando, and that his first choice of a team for the Magic to trade him to was the Brooklyn Nets. For a variety of reasons (Howard’s bizarre decision to opt into his final year with the Magic; the Magic’s refusal to accept a package centered around Brook Lopez and Kris Humphries; the Nets’ total lack of financial flexibility), that never happened. The Lakers were always lurking in the Howard sweepstakes, and swooped in to acquire him in August of 2012.

Howard seemed ecstatic at the time, saying it was a “dream come true” to join the Lakers.

Jayne Kamin-Oncea, USA TODAY Sports

Howard was likely drawn in by the same lure of immortality that Kobe Bryant and Jack Nicholson tried to sell him on this summer. What he didn’t factor in was the shallowness of the Lakers’ roster — outside of Nash, Bryant and Pau Gasol, there really wasn’t much — and how ill-suited that roster was for Mike Brown’s Princeton offense.

Brown was fired five games into the season and replaced by Mike D’Antoni, whose tenure has been a trainwreck of the highest order. When the Lakers struggle like that after pulling off the biggest offseason coup since the Miami Heat signed LeBron James and Chris Bosh, the media is going to take notice. And they will be merciless. Even though much of Howard’s struggles last season could be attributed to his decision to come back too early from offseason back surgery, his clumsy, ugly exit from Orlando was always going to draw scrutiny. It was a bad fit from the start.

So Nash is right. It’s not surprising that Howard never felt entirely at home in a Lakers uniform, or that he took the first opportunity to bolt to the friendlier confines of Houston. And Nash is also right that Howard shouldn’t be blamed for that. The idea that he “wasn’t cut out for the Lakers” (as has been suggested by many in Los Angeles, including Shaq) is ignoring the awkwardness of the circumstances surrounding his trade to the team.

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